Google announced a new software partnership with Citrix Systems earlier this week, stating that the two firms agreed to collaborate on a wide variety of new desktop apps that are meant to work in the cloud. Alphabet’s subsidiary has a long working relationship with the Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based software company, and the newly introduced partnership is intended to bring that relationship to the next level, Google said. The collaboration saw the Citrix Cloud service become officially supported by the Google Cloud Platform (GCP), providing businesses with even more choice and flexibility when it comes to transitioning their internal infrastructure to the cloud. The Citrix Netscaler application delivery controller (ADC) is now also officially supported by GCP, meaning that Google’s community of developers will soon be able to take advantage of Netscaler’s various microservices and application load balancing capabilities. The Google Cloud Launcher should start offering Netscaler CPX by the end of the current quarter, Google’s new cloud partner revealed.
The two companies also announced that they have successfully incorporated ShareFile into G Suite, thus providing clients with the option of sharing files with a ShareFile connector and Gmail to Google Drive. ShareFile is set to become part of the Google Cloud Launcher later this year, presumably by early fall. Citrix Receiver for Chrome is now also getting new functionalities that are largely aimed at Chrome OS-powered Chromebooks, looking to ennoble their cloud-based capabilities, the two companies said. Finally, Citrix promised a number of new related product announcements in early 2018, all of which are expected to be made at the next iteration of the Citrix Summit in January.
The partnership itself is mostly aimed at improving Citrix and Google’s offerings in the enterprise segment, looking to make their services more versatile and secure. It’s understood that the collaboration is meant to be of the long-term variety and will see the two work together on a number of new fronts in the coming years. The Mountain View, California-based company originally started collaborating with Citrix in 2010, with the software firm initially being focused on Chrome applications and their Android deployments, though it remains to be seen how those activities will align with this newfound focus on the enterprise segment in the future.